Syrians Pack Up to Flee Damascus as War in Capital Escalates

By Donna Abu-Nasr -
Dec 20, 2012

Syrian interior decorator Wassim
Issa knew it was time to get out.

Before leaving for Lebanon, the 37-year-old Damascus
resident hadn’t had any business in six months and the
proliferation of security checkpoints in the streets of the
capital suggested to him things were only going to get worse.
Now, Issa is trying to collect money from indebted clients
before finally moving to Dubai. Most have either fled the
country or are too poor to pay their bills.

“My job these days is to go around and try to get the
money people owe me,” Issa said last week as he munched on a
cheese and ham pizza in a cafe in Chtaura, a Lebanese town with
popular rest areas a few miles from the Syrian border.

Like Issa, most of the Syrians packing the small eatery had
made the 40-kilometer (25-mile) trip from Damascus that day.
Many were headed elsewhere, and planned to catch flights from
Beirut rather than the Syrian capital because of the danger as
rebels attack President Bashar al-Assad’s seat of power. Diehard
Assad supporters sat next to his opponents, engulfed by a 21-
month-old conflict that shows no sign of ending.

Syrian Vice President Farouk al-Sharaa told the Lebanese
Al-Akhbar newspaper on Dec. 16 that the civil war is destined
for stalemate. Syrians are leaving at a rate of 3,000 day,
Melissa Fleming, chief spokeswoman of the United Nations High
Commissioner for Refugees, said on Dec. 11. About 510,000
refugees have been registered or are awaiting registration in
Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq, Turkey and North Africa.

Capital Prize

The violence creeping on Damascus “is significant because
the capital is the major prize,” Joshua Landis, director of the
Middle East studies program at the University of Oklahoma in
Norman, said in a telephone interview. “Nobody can say that
they own Syria until they own Damascus.”

Activist groups reported clashes overnight. One of them,
the Damascus Media Office, said on its Facebook page that the
sound of “fierce shelling” could be heard in most
neighborhoods. It said the rebel Free Syrian Army attacked a
government intelligence post with mortars and machineguns.

The Local Coordination Committees of Syria, an umbrella
group representing cities and towns in the country, said 161
people were killed yesterday, including 67 in Damascus and its
suburbs. To date, more than 44,000 people have lost their lives
in the conflict, which started in March 2011, according to the
U.K.-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Spared Violence

Issa and his fellow Damascenes had stayed even as fighting
pulverized neighborhoods in major cities such as Aleppo and Hama
because Damascus had been spared that kind of violence.

Maha Zarour, 50, and Manal Abi Samra, 29, both ardent
supporters of the government, remain defiant. Though they are
afraid of what the next few weeks may bring, they plan to return
to their homes after a few days’ break.

“We are confident the rebels will never win,” said Abi
Samra. “Our army is strong and they’re just a bunch of armed
gangs,” she said, echoing the government’s description.

Today, the veneer of normalcy Damascus has sustained
throughout the conflict is fraying, according to accounts from
the people who have departed.

Clashes between Assad’s troops and rebels embedded in
mostly poor, Sunni Muslim suburbs, have intensified and there
are almost daily bombings in the capital and checkpoints at
every major street and many side roads.

Destinations

At the same cafe in Lebanon, other Syrians were seeking
refuge across the region. One man was taking his family to
Egypt, while another wanted to set up his wife and two daughters
in the relative safety of Beirut after a rebel-fired mortar
killed his only son.

“I don’t want to lose the rest of my family,” said
Bashar, tears rolling down his face. He gave his first name
only, fearing retribution.

The closure of major highways by rebel forces as well as
international sanctions have led to shortages in Damascus,
mainly in flour, diesel and cooking gas.

Long lines outside bakeries mean a wait of more than two
hours to get a kilogram of bread, which now sells for 75 pounds
($1.06) compared with 15 pounds when the crisis began, according
to Ahmed al-Hussein, 40, who trades in used mobile phones. A
shortage of fuel has tripled cab fares and deprived many Syrians
of diesel to heat their homes, added al-Hussein, whose business
is down to a third of what it was a few months ago.

Something Brewing

The resulting flow of refugees out of the country “will
add to the woes of a post-Assad Syria,” said Torbjorn Soltvedt,
senior analyst at Maplecroft, a U.K.-based risk consultant. “In
light of the intensity of violence and the virulence of the
conflict, levels of unrest and insecurity are likely to remain
high for many years regardless of the outcome.”

Issa was going to Amman, the Jordanian capital, to pick up
a visa from an embassy that had closed in Damascus.

“Damascenes look around and they see the checkpoints and
the security forces at every corner,” he said. “They can tell
that something big is brewing but they don’t know what it is.
That is adding to the fear.”